ADVANTAGE: AWESOME

Tuesday, March 6, 2007

Turnaround

I was disappointed with Donner & Johns' first two issues of Action Comics. While well drawn and well written, the story was done before. In Superman II and Superman Returns basically. I didn't enjoy seeing Jimmy Olsen devolved into a glorified gopher after about a decade or more of him coming into his own. And revealing that the kid was the son of Zod and Ursa, while surprising, wasn't enough of a cliffhanger or plot twist to make me think this story was going to be anything special.

But then Action Comics #846 came out and turn the old story up to 11. Getting past the short sightedness of Jor-El not setting the alarm in the Fortress to only Kal-El's DNA, the attack of the three Kryptonians is epic in scene and Zod's plan was for me, unexpected in it's entirety. I give Johns and Donner much credit for making me excited for #847.

For some reason, after reading Neil Gaiman's Eternals, I want to go to all my friends and give them a hug.

Justice is just getting better and better, and Krueger and Ross really know how to bring out the strengths of second tier heroes. The reveals are jaw-droppingly cool and, yes, it features my favorite Supergirl costume. Yay, baggy sleeves and hot pants!

I just came to a sad realization today. I read on Wizard Entertainment that the 'future' of the Marvel Universe is to have a militarized superhero community and thought, "You know who has a militarized superhero community? The Ultimate Universe." And I think I've said before the Ultimate Universe, while having a few interesting storylines, depresses the hell out of me. While on the one hand having superheroes not concentrated in one city makes for diverse and fresh stories, having the slightly fascist undertone to every registered hero story will, well, depress the hell out of me. How can I read a book that spends every storyline hunting and maiming/killing superheroes? Bye-bye, Thunderbolts.

Anyway, I think I'll concentrate on what Ilike about comics, like Batman and the various un-Millar-tainted X-books. And of course, Supergirl's hot pants.